


Missing the point

by SharpestRose



Series: Things made for sea air [2]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2011-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 22:00:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in the Things made for sea air universe. Loadstone James and Jack Sparrow and what to do when you haven't died.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing the point

"William, mate, you're missing the point of tactics. See, the idea is to look as menacing as hell itself come by for a visit, and then nobody's game to get in your way."

"Yes, we're not disputing that," James said calmly as he pinned Jack's arm to the table with his own left elbow and picked up the needle and thread in his right hand. "I think that, however, that you'll find most people will choose to carry weapons anyway. Just in case."

Bootstrap and young Will both nodded agreement to that, glaring at Jack as he took another gulp of the near-empty bottle in his free hand.

"All right, all right, so we might've had a better exit if I'd remembered shot and powder. Happy now? Any other complaints you've been storing up for a moment like this?" Gesturing to where James had now begun to sew up the deep rends in his arm, Jack returned the glare with added venom.

"There's no need to be like that, Jack. All I said was that we've got to be the first pirates to have a go at sacking Nassau without firing a shot. It's pure luck we got out with our skin."

" _Most_ of our skin," Jack corrected. "Soon as we get a ship I'm putting it in the articles: "Nobody's to scold the captain when he's having his innards put back inside'. Now piss off, go spend some of the bloody riches and spoils we swagged on stop complaining."

"Come on, Dad," young Will muttered. Bootstrap, still furious in the way only a worried surrogate older brother could be, shook his head at Jack a final time and left the small upstairs lodgings of the tavern without a word.

"Not a scratch on him and he's whinging like it's his arm split down the middle," Jack groused. James hummed a non-specific 'yes, Jack, shut up and drink your rum' way and kept on with his work. They'd stopped the bleeding with a knotted neck-kerchief but the wound was deep and the cut was not a clean one, and James feared that any future infection might cost Jack his arm or his life.

Jack took another gulp of grog, grimaced, and looked up and down at James's own stained clothing and scratched face.

"How're you, anyway? All limbs present and correct?"

"Mmm," James hmm'ed, nodding distractedly as he knotted one line of stitches closed and pinched the skin close to begin another beside it. "Take a big swig, Jack, I have to pull a splinter out from under the skin here."

"Jesus, James, don't _tell_ me that." Jack finished the bottle in one swallow and turned his head away from the wound. "You did get hit, I saw your coat tear where the shot went through."

"Only grazed the skin. Tore my pocket, though, and I had a purse of gold in there. I'll expect full reimbursement for that, seeing it was your fault it was lost."

James smiled at Jack's exasperated eyeroll.

"Everyone's a bloody critic."

James shrugged his shirt off his shoulders, ripping it into wide strips and binding Jack's now-repaired arm from the wrist to above the elbow. "You don't touch this until it's healed and ready for the stitches to be cut out, Jack. No picking, no scratching, no stretching."

"Do I get to play pincushion on that now?" Jack pointed at the shallow scratch above James's hip. "How much was in the purse, anyway?"

"Three of the coins from Barbossa's loot, two doubloons, a handful of shillings, a pair of earrings and several pennies."

"Trust you to keep a bloody inventory list," Jack muttered, standing on somewhat shaky legs and stumbling towards the bed. Jack liked beds. Hammocks, he always said, did not provide adequate sprawling space. "Earrings I don't believe, though, seeing's how you don't have any holes in your head but the ones you were born with."

"They were for Giselle," answered James, steering Jack to the bed's edge and kneeling to pull Jack's boots off. With a snort, Jack flopped back across the blanket, jarring his bandaged elbow and swearing at the pull on the new stitches.

"Giselle! What d'you want to be wasting earrings on her for? Troublemaker, she is. Bet you a drink that she tangles you up in a disaster sooner or later."

"What, you mean like you're constantly doing?" James, smirking, got the second of Jack's boots off and hauled his legs atop the bed with the rest of him.

"Yes!" Jack sat up abruptly, swaying sideways before finding his centre of gravity. "What's Giselle got that I haven't, eh?"

James, resisting the impulse to roll his eyes, looked around to check that there was nothing Jack could injure himself on before morning. It was like looking after a drunk puppy with a deathwish at times, being Jack Sparrow's offsider.

"Well," he said, surprised Jack hadn't yet passed out from the aftershocks of pain and an alarming quantity of rum. "She has breasts, for one thing."

"'ve got breasts." Jack fumbled at his shirt clumsily, pulling the already wide collar until an expanse of gold-tanned skin was visible above the neckline. "Better'n Giselle's, hers are white and lumpy and soft."

"Yes, that's the general idea with breasts, Jack."

"Doesn't have a single thing better'n me, mate." Jack's good hand came up and, with as much subtlety as a bull in a china shop, twirled his moustache. This time James did roll his eyes.

"Apart from breasts, a body odor not recognisable as eau de bilgewater, and a history without any major brushes with death, you mean?"

"As opposed to _minor_ brushes with death?" Jack smirked. "C'mon, Conscience. I might well turn out to be mortally wounded here, least you can do is help me go out smiling."

"Don't worry." James's voice was dry. "I think you'll last until tomorrow, Jack. Now give up and go to sleep."

Scowling, Jack flopped back and waved James away with an imperious finger-flick. Then, as James pinched the candle out and turned to go, Jack spoke again.

"'m glad of it, you know. This ruddy wound. Clothes, hair baubles... they come and go. But scars I get to keep once I've collected them, an' now I've got one shaped by you."

James smiled at that. "Goodnight, Jack. Sleep well."

Jack gave an outraged splutter. "Come on, surely that's worth a kiss at least? I was heartfelt and sincere, honestly. That's got to earn me something."

Smile widening into an exasperated grin, James walked back over to the edge of the bed and bent down, pressing his lips to where Jack's cheek had been twenty seconds beforehand.

Now, however, James's mouth met Jack's own, rum and salt and warmth in a surprising cocktail on his tongue before he could think to pull away. It was an inelegant, unexpected, sloppy kiss; all teeth and stubble-scratch and slightly uncomfortable angles, and neither man moved to break it for a rather long time.

"Bet that was better than bloody Giselle," Jack muttered once he'd found his voice again.

"Jack, are you _jealous_ of her?" James asked, too incredulous to think much about the words before saying them. Jack didn't answer. "Jack?"

"Look, my pride is wounded enough for one day without you reminding me that you're giving earrings to a doxy to get what I'm offering free, all right? "'Specially seeing as how I rarely if ever offer things for free." Jack's words tumbled out in a frustrated explosion, half-shouted.

"Jack... I..." James blinked, then blinked again. He was still leaning over the bed, he realised, and Jack's body temperature was strikingly hot this close against his skin. "I had no idea."

"I did make a point of showing an interest, if you'd bothered to notice," Jack said accusingly.

"You show an interest in _everything_ , Jack." James's throat felt thick and tight as he tried to keep his breathing even. "When you flirt, it's not really evidence of much except that you're conscious."

"Yes, well, that's not the point, is it. I -" Jack started to say. And then, finally, after years of trying, James found a way to shut Jack up.


End file.
